CHAPTER 22

It was some time before Tanya could persuade Yvette to move or speak. Like a mother with a child, she managed at last to persuade her to come over to the water trough in the courtyard and clean some of the contaminated waters of the flood from her with the slightly cleaner water still coming from the old pump. She put her own coat round Yvette’s shoulders then went to Café Procope to beg towels and a messenger to send to Paul.

With Maud and Yvette as well protected from the cold as she could manage, she led them the short distance to Paul’s rooms on Rue Racine. The concierge was a friend of Mr Allardyce’s so knew Tanya’s name, and on hearing it, and seeing her and her friends, she put her usual moral scruples aside and took them in. She brought hot water, blankets from her own store, and soup. Maud and Yvette let Tanya attend to them. Maud watched her remove Yvette’s filthy clothes and sponge her pale skin with soap and hot water, dry her and wrap her in blankets then wash the foul waters from her hair. Then she settled Yvette on the sofa near the fire and turned her attention to Maud.

It was when she put her head back to let Tanya pour warm water from an enamel jug over her hair that Maud saw for the first time the livid bruise on the Russian girl’s cheek. She put up her hand to touch it with her fingertips.

‘Tanya?’

The girl smiled and shook her head. ‘Don’t worry, darling. It left me dizzy for a while, but it was nothing to the sickness I felt when I came to and realised that monster had got past me. Don’t fret. Sasha and Paul will be here in a little while, and they will make a great deal more of a fuss over me than I have made over you.’ She poured another jug of hot water over Maud’s hair, lifting the strands apart with her fingers. ‘Can you tell me what happened?’

Maud looked over to the couch where Yvette appeared to have drifted off into an uneasy sleep, wrapped in a mound of blankets. ‘He found her with the diamonds. He would have killed her if she hadn’t been so quick with her knife.’

Tanya nodded, then took one of her towels from the pile and began to rub Maud’s hair dry between her palms.

‘What is she holding onto so tight? All the time I have been washing her she’s kept her hand clenched over something.’

‘Her knife, I think,’ Maud said. ‘She was searching for it in the water. Tanya, when Paul comes, do you think he might collect our things from the room in Rue de Seine and pay the woman? I have silver enough in my purse, I think.’

‘Of course, darling.’

*   *   *

Paul did what he was asked, though it took some time before he was reassured that Tanya was not severely injured. Tanya asked him for his trust and he gave it as easily as he had given his love. Sasha had come with him from the church and now mounted a furious watch over them all, seated on a stool by the stove and working her needles, getting up from time to time to examine them all for signs of fever.

As soon as Paul had delivered their bundles, he left again to continue reporting the water’s rise. Maud watched his expression as he exchanged hurried goodbyes with Tanya in the open doorway, and thought her friend had as good a chance as anyone of happiness in marriage.

Maud went behind the screen to dress. She slipped her feet into the cold damp leather of her boots and was catching the last of the buttons together when she heard the sound of something dropping to the floor and a low gasp from the main room. She emerged and saw Tanya kneeling by Yvette. She imagined that the knife had fallen from her hand finally as she slept, and that Tanya’s sigh was a sign she had found it with Morel’s blood on it … but when Tanya turned towards her and opened her palm, she was not holding the knife, but the golconda diamond.

‘Maud,’ Tanya said, her voice tight, ‘the knife is still there. When the waters go down, they will find him and it. She carved her name into it. She must get away.’

Maud stared at the stone. Seeing it in Tanya’s palm, the way it shifted the light around it, it seemed ridiculous that even for a moment she could have been fooled by the fake she had seen. The diamond had a power and presence to it that could not be described or captured.

She knelt down and closed Tanya’s fingers over it. She never wanted to see it again. ‘Do you think Yvette might like to come to England with me? We will need papers perhaps, but there will be some time before the waters go down.’

Tanya touched Yvette’s forehead and she murmured something in her sleep. ‘Yes, yes I do. Oh Lord, yes, I think that would be best.’

There was a light tap at the door and Sasha went to answer it. Charlotte was there looking weary but otherwise just the same. ‘I met Mr Allardyce at Saint-Sulpice,’ she said before they had even asked the question. ‘And he told me where you were. I thought I’d come along and be warm for an hour before going back to the refugees. It seems everyone knows you are here, by the way. There was a woman waiting in the street and she asked me to give you this, Miss Heighton.’ She passed her a piece of notepaper. Maud felt her body shiver as she took it. There was no other woman who might be waiting for them there.

It read: Pont des Arts, an hour.

Maud passed it to Tanya. ‘From Sylvie.’

Tanya glanced at it then looked back at her. ‘Maud, you can’t go.’

‘Of course I am going, Tanya. You know that.’

Tanya clenched her fists in frustration. ‘Then I shall come too. Charlotte, will you watch Yvette with Sasha until we get back?’

Charlotte settled herself into one of the armchairs and glanced at the sleeping girl. ‘Of course I shall.’

Maud was shaking her head. ‘Tanya, please, you have to take care of Yvette. You are getting married…’

Tanya had already put on her long coat and was doing up the buttons angrily. ‘No, Maud. Don’t worry, I shall not interfere. But whatever happens … there should be a witness. You will not disappear into that horrible greedy river again with no one knowing of it. You don’t know what it was like, just to be told, to be told something like that by a stranger.’